Strauss & co - 2015 Mid-year Review

The market for South African art has never been in such exuberantly buoyant – and not infrequently rude – good health as it is right now. Nor have South African artworks ever been anything like as desirable. By early June this year, the country’s benchmark auction house, Strauss & Co had already turned over R105 million, and in the troubled financial climate that prevails, on a single night in mid-March, realised over R52 million in a couple of hours at a Cape Town auction. Total sales since the company’s startup, in 2009, currently stand at more than R1 billion. Perhaps more remarkable in relation to the insight it provides into the accuracy with which Strauss & Co’s specialists read or, perhaps, nurture the potentials of the market, is the fact that such glittering results have been achieved on a sell-through rate – that is the volume by percentage of lots offered for sale in relation to those actually sold – which stands consistently higher than 80%. This constitutes the highest sell through rate in the current market. These days work by Cape Town artist Jane Alexander produced for her Master’s show, can sell for more than R5 million rather than the tens of thousands they might have been expected to deliver at the time. Jane Alexander Untitled Sold R5 456 640, 11 November 2013 RECORD FOR THE ARTIST, SOUTH AFRICAN RECORD FOR CONTEMPORARY ART Walking the High Wire by Ivor Powell Front Cover Erik Laubscher Women Arranging Flowers signed and dated 1951; inscribed with the title, ‘Paris March 1951’ and the artist’s address on the reverse oil on canvas 115,5 by 88,5cm Estimate R1 200 000 – 1 600 00 To be sold in Cape Town on Monday 12 October 2015 © Jane Alexander | DALRO 1